Stages Of Grief
by CMDRHill
Summary: Inside Kate's unconscious mind as she deals with the horrific events of the finale. A tiny bit of Castle added in Chapter two
1. Stage One: Shock and Denial

So, I was too busy to write after the finale, and I really wasn't going to, but my cat got run over by a car this weekend, and something my mom said made me start to think (cue WordDoc).

If someone has already written something similar, I apologize, I have barely read any fanfic in weeks.

I claim no ownership of anything recognizable.

The song is "Cabaret" sung by Emmy-Lou Harris on the "Winn-Dixie" sound track

oOo

"You once dreamed of castles and marry-go-rounds, to be Cinderella in an Alice movie, now side streets and back beats and what might have been, lead you to nowhere again and again…"

oOo

Kate was dreaming, a restless nightmarish dream,

she knew she was dreaming,

and she couldn't escape.

She was running, from something, trying desperately to get away, her pursuer was closing in, and she could feel darkness and weight, like the waves of an ocean crashing down on her.

She couldn't wake up, but she knew she was dreaming, what else could it be?

The Captain was dead.

_Her _Captain was dead.

It had to be a dream; the pain couldn't be real.

And yet Castle was holding her, she was marching next to a rider-less horse, she was speaking of battlegrounds- and she was shot.

It couldn't be a dream; the pain like this could not be imagined.

He's dead, and she's nearly there herself.

It just can't be.


	2. Stage Two: Pain and Guilt

This song is "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry

Please, please, please review….. please?

oOo

"The sharp knife, of a short life… Never known the loving of a man…"

The Pain,

"At least I get what I deserve," she thought, "for not being there, for not breaking loose from Castle."

It welled up inside her, like a wave trying to escape.

Despair

"How could I just wait there, hearing those gunshots?"

"I knew it, _I knew he would die_, how could I let Castle drag me away?"

_Castle watched as Kate's body shook on the hospital bed._

_He watched a tear roll down her face._

_He reached for her hand, but even her unconscious mind twitched it away._

Captain was gone, her mentor, her base, gone… forever.

In a momentary flash, she saw the warehouse, the bodies on the ground, and _him,_

_Laying there_

_His gun still in his hand_

_He went in a blaze of glory_

_Fighting 'til the end_

And he left her, Alone, unanswered questions.

The Guilt,

She was alive, this much she knew, because of the physical pain, but with living came the pain of guilt.

She shouldn't be alive; or at least the captain should alive with her.

If he was intent on going down, she should have been there and gone down with him, she was shot anyways, why couldn't she be shot while holding a gun and fighting by his side?

Being a cop, she thought she has seen it all; bloodshed by immediate family, a twin, who lost his other half, murder for money, psychopaths on rampage.

But nothing had prepared her to lose part of herself.

She loved the captain. She was not his _lover, _no; neither of them was ever tempted in such a way, but he was like her father. She loved her dad dearly, but the captain was there for her every day, he knew what it was like to be a cop. Her dad knew her personal loss, but the captain understood the everyday tragedies of street life.

He was her friend, her baseline.

When she realized that he was the third cop, she wasn't angry, just shocked.

Fear lasted only a moment, because she knew the captain as he was, not who he had been.

She knew that he was a good man, and that is what was killing her.

A good, wonderful, man, gave up his life to protect her, and yet she was still lying unconscious on a hospital bed.

She wanted so desperately to reach up and push the monitor down, to tear out the wires, and pull the plug.

But she was trapped in her own mind.

_Castle gave a start as the monitor beeped, and watched Kate's heart rate spike for a moment. He was about to call in a nurse, when it returned to normal. Well, the normal for someone in a two-week-and-counting coma._


	3. Stage 3: Anger and Bargaining

SO….. stupid me deleted an almost complete version of this chapter, which is way late anyways…. I also lost all the psych, glee, other castle and leverage fic I've been working on. Completely obliterate it from my computer. Eradicated. Annihilated. Eliminated. gone…..

So….. the complete rewrite is probably way different than what it started as, but its been so long I can't remember what it was…

I feel like crap…

recover-from-grief com/7-stages-of-grief html

is where I get the stages and descriptions

The song is "You Lie" by The Band Perry

oOo

_It ain't complicated__  
><em>_Well, I've grown to hate it__  
><em>_I never liked the taste of crow but baby I ate it__  
><em>_They tried to warn me__  
><em>_They said that you were ornery__  
><em>

Becket wanted to reach up and strangle Castle, to make him feel the pain she felt, to make him understand what he had let happen. She hated him, for not letting her help her captain, for not letting her go.

_You told me you were out with the boys and baby I believed you__  
><em>_So why you lookin' so nervous__  
><em>_You know you're gonna deserve this__  
><em>_I oughta kill you right now and do the whole wide world a service_

Ryan, Ryan and Esposito, those two, the perfect little pair. How she despised them, the way they could just exist, laugh and goof off, but still get the job done. Right now they were probably having beers, "mourning" their beloved captain, wishing her well. Tomorrow they would go back to work shaken, but committed. Perfect that's what they were, and it irritated her no end.

_That ain't my perfume__  
><em>_I bet she had a curfew_

Lanie would be around to say sweet things and make her feel better of course, like she always did. But Becket had had enough. She was so tired of Lanie's coddling and cooing, her incessant chatter, and her habit of trying to hook her up with Castle, or some other hot guy, Becket was just going to have to teach her a lesson.

_So don't bring me those big brown eyes and tell me that you're sorry__  
><em>_Well you might as well throw gasoline on a fire_

She hated the Captain for dying, for leaving her on her own. For not letting her stand with him, fight with him, die with him, she hated him.

"He shouldn't be dead, I should be dead, or we should both be alive." She wailed inside her mind, fighting her comma wishing she could scream, wishing that they would cut the painkillers, so at least she could physically feel _something_. So that there was something to drown out her thoughts, to keep her from mentally torturing herself.

But she couldn't feel anything, so she hated the universe instead.

"Maybe, _maybe_ she thought, if I died, it would all be okay, or maybe if I gave up on finding mom's killers he wouldn't be dead."

"I can't even convince my drugged up comatose head that everything will turn out nice and peachy." Her thoughts rambled, "And now my voice is split into multiple ideals, and I'm thinking to myself about thinking to myself while I'm in a comma. Even though because I'm in a comma I shouldn't be thinking at all, and I'm imagining my voice raising AND BECOMING HOARSE AND ME GOING CRAZZY WHICH I AM."

At some point her desperation made her thoughts dim, and she gave up, hatred still throbbing in her mind, like blood pounding to the beating of her heart, which had kicked up its pace.

oOo

_Castle failed to notice the quicker clips of the monitor, because after a 63 hour vigil of crawling through the hours heavily relying on caffeine, he fell asleep; dead to the world._


End file.
